Saturday, March 13, 2010

Andrew Carnegie Rides Again!


Last Friday, I put on my 19th century fancy outfit (why is it that I even have a 19th century fancy outfit? Long story here, another time perhaps.) and came into my class as Andrew Carnegie. As some of you may know, Carnegie came to the US as a poor immigrant from Scotland and ended up as the richest (or maybe second richest) American of his time.

I had asked my students to prepare some responses on the the proposition of "What is good for business is good for the US," and I gave them the opportunity to debate Carnegie, more or less in the flesh. Everyone seemed to have a good time of it. After a while, my students started asking the questions you would expect students from a upper-scale liberal background to ask, and I gave them the answers that someone who was a businessman in the latter half of the 19th century would give.

I think it was a good exercise for my students to debate someone who they clearly didn't agree with, and it certainly held their interest.

Granted, not much to do with high technology here, except that I was able to download a copy of Carnegie's essay "The Gospel of Wealth" (available here ) in a matter of minutes and a bit of an Internet search. That certainly made my job easier.

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